


Check My Vital Signs

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: au_bingo, Community: spnland, Episode: s04e19 Jump the Shark, Episode: s05e18 Point of No Return, F/F, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>When Abby meets Dad, Dad says nurses are more important than doctors, because nurses deal with all the little problems before they become big problems, and doctors only worry about the big problems or about figuring out what the problems are. She won't do what Dad wants; she won't measure herself by the yardstick of someone who isn't ever around to hold it himself.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Check My Vital Signs

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day (my shadow's the only one that walks beside me).

First Abby thinks she's going to be a nurse when she grows up, like Mom. Nurses help people. Then Abby finds out doctors do less work and make more money. Which is great for the doctors but not fair to the nurses or the patients.

When Abby meets Dad, Dad says nurses are more important than doctors, because nurses deal with all the little problems before they become big problems, and doctors only worry about the big problems or about figuring out what the problems are. She won't do what Dad wants; she won't measure herself by the yardstick of someone who isn't ever around to hold it himself. It's four years later before she realizes 'not what Dad wants' is as bad, from the perspective of not defining herself by Dad, as 'what Dad wants'.

Abby's in the apartment she shares with Rachel, studying anatomy and physio, when she gets the call asking where Mom is, because Mom missed her shift. Which is crazy. Mom never misses a shift. Abby makes a few calls and no one's seen her, so Abby leaves a note for Rachel and goes to have a look.

Mom's at home in the kitchen with Mr. Barton. Except Mom isn't Mom and Mr. Barton isn't Mr. Barton and they're both _crazy_ and Dad killed their dad? These things that aren't people, they eat dead bodies and live bodies and they ate Mom and Mr. Barton and they're eating Abby, _eating Abby_, because Dad kills monsters?

Then it's all a misty blur, board games with Mom and dancing with Sean at prom and fucking Rachel between classes, and then an angel comes to Abby and tells her she's in heaven, that there's war between heaven and hell. Sachiel explains all about Abby's big brothers and how Sam's so sure there's a way to kill the devil without help from the archangel Michael that Dean won't do what Michael needs before Michael can kill Lucifer, but if Abby says yes, she can do what Dean won't.

Only if she can see Mom again, Abby says.

Sachiel agrees.

Abby wakes up in pain. Her first thought is it's that time of the month, which would fucking suck, but it's the wrong part of her. Lungs, maybe? Ribs? Much too far from her hips to be anything reproduction-related.

There are three men in the room, all older than Abby. She asks where she is, and the tallest one says it's crazy but they're her brothers, Sam and Dean. Abby laughs them off while Sam and Dean and their friend Cas argue, but when she tries to leave, Sam just...looms.

Sam is like eight feet by two-twenty pounds. He has two friends nearly as big. Abby is five-eight, one-forty. She knows how to defend herself, Dad taught her the basics, but there are three of them and together they're four, five times her size. Abby sits back down.

Abby can't help snarking back, though. Or blowing her top when Sam says she should trust them because they're blood.

Sam tries to explain how Abby got the better side of the deal, the safer side. Abby got _eaten alive_ because Dad didn't think to tell her or Mom, oh hey, I kill monsters for a living, you're my family and you're easy to find so keep an eye out.

When Abby sleeps, she meets another angel. Zachariah. Sachiel told her about him. Zachariah says some shit about Sam and Dean, and it rings wrong. In the obvious way, but also in the 'I want something from you and it's easier to get if you believe me' way. Sean pulled that on her. It's why they broke up.

When Zachariah asks where Abby is, she hesitates a long moment—on the one hand, angels brought her back to life, angels can bring Mom back, and also the saving the world thing; on the other, it's Zachariah's word against Sam's, and Sam doesn't creep her out.

Abby wakes up and goes to scope out Mr. Singer's kitchen. She knows where to find the beer, but she's really more in the mood for tuna salad.

There's no mayo. Mr. Singer volunteers to drive her into town. Five minutes after they leave, there's a sound like beating wings, and the next thing Abby sees is a fancy room with paintings, burgers, and Zachariah.

Abby's instincts scream _run run run_, but there's no door, no window, no way of knowing what's on the other side of the drywall. She asks a couple questions, and yeah, Sam was right about the angels.

Dean and Sam come for her. It's a trap, she tells Dean, but he already knows. She misses half the conversation due to internal bleeding, but what comes across loud and clear is that Zachariah is the exact same sort of close-minded boss type as That Bastard Mom used to rant about and all this was a stunt to save Zachariah's _job_, and the only true thing Abby knows she's heard in the past two days is the Winchesters care about family.

And Abby's a Winchester.

Dean pulls a bait-and-switch on Zachariah and stabs him in the throat while the room shakes, then hauls Sam to his feet and half carries Abby out of the room. They collapse in a pile just outside the door. Abby closes her eyes it's so bright, bats a hand away from her shirt, and when the light and noise vanish she sees a red design on the floor and more red on Dean's fingers and palm.

Dean rolls Sam onto his back and pokes at various points on his torso, then asks permission to do the same to Abby. Not bad enough to need an ambulance, he pronounces. He pulls out his wallet and digs through it till he finds a card, then declares Abby 'Jackie Cooper'—Sam raises an eyebrow and Dean says something about last summer with Joe—and tells them to sit tight while he finds them a ride.

Abby asks Sam what happens now. Sam shrugs and winces. Nothing that involves suicide or the next thing, he assures her, which is what saying yes to Michael would have been. Other than that? They'll work on littler problems while they try to figure out the big one.


End file.
